


A Light In The Depths

by FiliTheLionKing (IAmYourWatson)



Category: Being Human (UK), The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid, Anders is Ariel (sort of), Colin and Herrick have dark magic, Dark Magic, Deep Sea Merpeople, Fantasy, M/M, Merman sex possibly, Minor Violence, Mitchell is Eric (sort of), Not even sure how that works to be honest..., Past Character Death, Probably lots of scientific inaccuracies, Rating will go up to E if that happens, Romance, Sea Monsters, Shipwrecks, Transformation, Twisted Fairytale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-02-03 17:54:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1753527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmYourWatson/pseuds/FiliTheLionKing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Under the sea lies the kingdom of Atlantica. Its second prince, Anders, son of King Johan, is infamous for his incessant need to explore and to see the lands beyond his kingdom's borders. Most have given up on him being anything near normal, and since he often travels with passing pods of dolphins or groups of whales, he's never in too much danger. </p><p>Then comes the one time, after his 21st birthday, that he travels to a shipwreck beyond the borders of Atlantica, one that sits on the edge of a deep, dark chasm that leads to the mysterious Below, the world of deep sea creatures and shadow. No one who's gone down there has survived, and he's not about to test that. But as he explores the ship, he meets someone who lives Below, someone who will change his life forever...</p><p>A re-telling of The Little Mermaid, set entirely underwater, with dark twists and strange depths never before seen on land or beneath the sea...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Light In The Depths

**Author's Note:**

> So this is something that came to me at work when I was bored and remembering when Blue and I both wrote fairytale AU's for Britchell one right after the other. She wrote Cinderella, I did Sleeping Beauty. It wasn't a coordinated thing, but that's how it went. I've been wanting to do another fairytale, and this just came to me out of nowhere at my job, which was great, since I was bored out of my mind. Hooray for paying the bills! So I give you this strange re-telling of The Little Mermaid, starring our two favorite boys and the author taking a TON of liberties with both science and the source material. As always, comments and kudos make my day a little bit brighter, so please leave some! ~Lioness

Anders was a prince of Atlantica. Specifically, he was the second prince of Atlantis. His eldest brother, Mikkel, was a bore, always following their father around to learn how to rule the sea. As the second heir, Anders didn't have as many responsibilities, and he used this to his advantage. His younger brothers, Tyrone and Axl, were fun when they were younger, but once the teachers got a hold of them, they were a lot less eager to go with Anders and explore the vast sea surrounding their home. For exploring was what interested Anders the most, even though travel far from the city and its surrounding farms and small villages was discouraged. The merfolk weren't big fans of migration, unlike the dolphins and whales, with whom Anders often traveled until they reached the far limits of Atlantica's realms. And so Anders, prince of Atlantica, was often far away from the royal palace. 

Traveling alone had never bothered the prince; he could make friends easily, and he often found swimming companions in the form of various fishes and mammals, even the odd crustacean. He'd mapped the many wrecks and strange rock formations at the borders of King Johan's kingdom. Anders had even befriended a group of dolphins, led by the matriarch, Ingrid, and whenever they visited, he would often leave the palace and spend days on end swimming around with her pod. It would worry his mother if she wasn't already so used to it, and besides, she knew Ingrid and her extended family. She trusted them with Anders' safety. It was when Anders left without anyone and didn't meet up with his fishy friends that made her worry. But there was little she could do to stop him; Anders was strong-willed and brave. He could sneak out of a closed oyster shell if he wanted to, and she'd learned to just pray to Poseidon that he would come back safe and sound. 

* * *

When Anders was 21, he went on one of his longer journeys. He wasn't meeting with any of his friends on this voyage; the pods had moved on for warmer waters, and the whales had done the same. The fishes were busy doing other things, and the wreck he wanted to visit was just a quarter league from his father's borders. No one had been there yet, and while he'd only seen it from a vague distance, it looked like one of the older human boats, one of the first made of that strange metal they invented some few centuries ago. Rumor had it that it was sunk during a violent storm on the surface, and everyone on the ship drowned. Humans, such fools, such poor swimmers at best, and with no gills to breathe with! They belonged safely on land, where they were meant to be. 

There was another story that went with that shipwreck, however. Another rumor, a dark fairy fish-tale told to little guppies to make them go to bed on time and never venture near The Cliff. The Cliff was a sheer drop into darkness beyond the southern edge of King Johan's realm, which was the edge of a dark, deep chasm called The Depths. The Depths were off-limits for all merfolk, because if you swam down there, you never came up. The great crushing weight of Below would kill you and your body would sink beyond all hope of recovery. Most merfolk that had to travel to other kingdoms avoided the chasm altogether, or else swam up to the bright surface and swam over it there. It wasn't wide, but it was a place of evil and mystery, something merfolk weren't fond of. 

But back to the story. The story that went with the shipwreck was something that was known to be true, but the full extent of the truth was debatable. Some said it was stretched to its limits so as to make a scarier story, while some, including many scholars, agreed that it was true, somehow. For you see, when the ship sank, the bodies of the sailors were never found, save for one. There were rumors of a dark force that lived Below, whose realm began in The Depths and supposedly included all dark, deep places. This dark force appeared before every drowning sailor, offering them life in exchange for their human forms. The caveat: they will forever be bound to Below, never able to venture to the surface and see the sun or feel the sea breeze on their skin again. Humans, like merfolk, value their lives, and when faced with death, they will often choose life, no matter what the cost. So the dark force turned them into the Abyssals, deep sea merfolk who were rarely, if ever, seen by Anders' people. Rumor had it that they eat the dead, leaving only the skeletons to sink to the bottom, or that they drank blood. No one knew for sure what they ate, only that they seemed to be sentient and highly dangerous. 

The one sailor who didn't accept the offer is the reason Anders' people knew of the Abyssals, because it was his body they saw the dark folk dragging into the depths, never to be seen again. That was hundreds of years ago. Few had seen the Abyssals since.

Anders believed that the Abyssals did exist; what he was skeptical about was their apparent immortality, and their need to eat the blood of anything that fell into their realm. Which was why he wasn't very afraid as he swam closer to the great hulking shipwreck near the edge of The Cliff. To his left was the great darkness of The Depths, to his right a long field of seagrass that would eventually lead to a low-lying wall of stones that marked the edge of King Johan's influence. The blonde mermaid's blue tail didn't shimmer very much in this part of the sea; the water was duller than in other places, affected as it was by the darkness of The Depths. Still, he didn't need a glow-rock to see by, and most merfolk had pretty decent night vision. He wasn't worried, and the daylight on the surface was still fairly bright. He reached the hull and took a swim around it, ignoring the darkness nearby, and began his explorations. 

As the hours passed, he found treasures and little curiosities inside the old shipwreck, small things that had survived the great calamity that sank it. There were bits of glass, dirty with age but salvageable. He could trade them for a good deal of goods; human-made glass was a rarity in Atlantica, and whatever Anders found always did well in the open markets. There were some metal pots and pans, a few trinkets that resembled the wind instruments that the musicians used, and even a few combs (two made of whale bone, and three of some strange green stone). He put all of his finds in his satchel, and was about to leave again when he heard the swishing of water moving. That in and of itself wasn't unusual; old shipwrecks often sang with the creaking of water passing through it with the currents.  _This_  sound was alarming, however, because it wasn't a current: it was the sound of a fin, a  _merfolk's_  fin.

The blonde spun around, a small knife in his hand from where he'd snatched it from his satchel. It wasn't much of a defense, but Anders was a fast swimmer, and he could make it out of the ship and out into open waters within seconds if he had to. He looked around the dim ship, and saw something flit away from the corner of his eye. He turned again, and came face to face with a creature he'd only heard of in stories: an Abyssal. Anders backed away and crashed into a chest of drawers, knocking over the tarnished silverware on it. He didn't care, though; the Abyssal was still staring right at him. The creature didn't seem to be hostile, just curious, and perhaps a little...pained? Its breathing seemed a bit labored, as if it had just swam a league. The part of Anders' brain that wasn't freaking out reasoned that it was because he was up too far from his usual depths. 

After a few moments of staring warily at each other, Anders calmed down enough to realize the Abyssal's hands were up, palms outward in a gesture of peace. Anders didn't quite trust him (and yes, the Abyssal was a him, he noted), but lowered the knife a little bit in concession. The Abyssal was thin, to the point where his ribs were visible, but not to the point where the skin was incredibly taut over them. His hipbones protruded outwards sharply, and his collarbone and shoulders were also shown in sharp relief against his skin. The Abyssal's tail was long and a dark, dark green, to the point where it was almost black, if not for the slight sheen to it. His scales were large compared to Anders' smaller ones, and his tail ended in a see-through, spiny fin. His gills were colored the same sullen, dark green as his tail, and were somewhat larger than the ones on Anders' own neck. Sharp claws were in place of his fingernails, his fingers weren't webbed like Anders', and his hair was a dark black that was usually rare amongst merfolk (only Tyrone had it out of their whole family).

However, the two things that were the most striking about the Abyssal were his eyes and his mouth. The deep sea merman's eyes were big, far bigger than Anders' eyes, and were colored a milky white that seemed to glow. There was little bioluminescence on the Abyssal, just a few spots here and there on his tail, but they were muted by both the light and what seemed to be the Abyssal's wariness. Even though the Abyssal's eyes had no pupil like Anders' did, the blonde merman could still read the emotions hidden there. Wariness, curiosity, wisdom, and a hint of amusement directed at Anders' knife; the blonde figured that if it came down to a fight, the Abyssal would win. This became even more evident when the Abyssal smiled as Anders lowered his knife all the way: the deep sea merman's mouth was wide, not horribly so, but enough to be strange. His teeth were sharp, and some were thin like needles where others were still thin, but strong enough to tear. Anders would bet that the Abyssal's teeth could tear through meat like a shark's. 

"...Níl aon ghá a bheith eaglach. Ní bheidh mé ionsaí ort." The Abyssal spoke in a soft but rich voice. The strange language that poured through his lips was unfamiliar to Anders, who was a master of words and had studied every known language beneath the surface. From the Abyssal's demeanor, he assumed it was a greeting or reassurance of some kind. Even though it would probably prove to be a bad idea, Anders stowed his knife away on the gut feeling that this Abyssal wouldn't harm him. 

"I don't know what you're saying. I don't speak that language, whatever it is." He said, raising an eyebrow as the Abyssal's brow furrowed, as if he was struggling to remember something. 

"Cad is ainm duit?" The Abyssal tried again. "...Er...what...what is your name?" He smiled as he seemed to remember the Common Tongue. 

"Anders, Second Prince of Atlantica." Anders couldn't help but smile as well; the Abyssal's good mood was infectious. "And what's yours?" 

"Mitchell. John Mitchell." The Abyssal bowed. "I didn't know Atlantica's princes wandered so far from their kingdom..." 

"I'm the only one that does. My brothers are dull that way." Anders snickered, feeling a bit safer when Mitchell joined in. "Mitchell, that's an unusual name in Atlantica. But then again, you're from Below, so I guess it's a common name there?" 

"Common, no. Our names  _would_  be strange by your accountings, I suppose. We have two while you only have one." The Abyssal stated, moving around to float nearer to Anders, looking him over as if he hadn't seen a merman from Above in a long time. "...Why didn't you swim away when you saw me? Everyone else from your world that I've seen has swam away as if Davy Jones himself was after them..." 

"...Well, you didn't attack me right away, which was something in your favor, I guess..." Anders eyes the Abyssal as he swam around him in a circle. There was a playful look in the darker merman's eyes, which is the only reason why Anders didn't swat him away. "And besides, you were blocking my only exit. And what's a Davy Jones? Is he from Atlantica?" 

The Abyssal laughed, much to Anders' delighted surprise; the darker merman's laugh made him feel all tingly inside, like if a jellyfish sting was a pleasant experience and not a bad one. It was a strange comparison to make, but Mitchell was a strange creature. He found himself giggling with Mitchell, even though he wasn't quite sure what the joke was. Mitchell explained that Davy Jones was a human legend, a dark force of the sea that ferried the drowned and shipwrecked to the afterlife. Anders found himself falling into easy conversation with the Abyssal, to the point where they began swimming through the wreck and towards the open sea without him even noticing it. When they were outside again, he noticed that Mitchell's already heavy breathing was getting worse, and he remembered that Abyssal's really weren't meant to be this high up. 

"Mitchell, don't you need to go back to The Depths? Your breathing is harsh, and I doubt it's very good for your health to be up here this long..." He glanced at the dark depths nearby, wondering if there were more Abyssal's lurking down there, waiting for Mitchell to come back. Maybe he had a family down there. 

"...Aye, I do need to go back..." Mitchell said softly. He looked reluctant to go, although they both knew he needed to go back to Below. 

"...What if...you meet me here, at the shipwreck, in two days' time? Can you tell the days down there?" Anders asked quickly, filled with a sudden need to see the Abyssal again. The darker merman was funny, and kind, and knew things no other merfolk Anders had ever met knew. He wanted to know more about him, and here seemed the best place to meet, since it would be just as dangerous for Anders to venture into Below. At least here Mitchell could easily go back down to The Depths; he'd already said his kind were more resilient than merfolk from Above, and he'd have an easier time readjusting than Anders would if he went Below. 

"Yes, we can tell the time." Mitchell smiled, his spiny teeth doing nothing to diminish the happy glow of his eyes and expression. "In two days, then, Anders of Atlantica." He took the blonde's hand in his (Mitchell's skin was cooler than Anders', but the sensation only made him shiver in delight) and bowed to kiss it. Mitchell's lips were just as cool, and even though Anders could feel the hardness of the Abyssal's teeth through his skin, the kiss on the hand was still the most wonderful thing he'd ever experienced. 

"In two days, then." Anders said softly.

"Aye, in two days. Go dtí sin, mo Prionsa." Mitchell grinned, then, like a flash, swam back towards The Cliff. He was even faster than Anders, something which should have frightened the merman. But the blonde was far too fascinated with his new friend, so fascinated that he overlooked the tiny, warm glow he felt in his heart, the sign of something far deeper to come.

For now, though, he merely watched as the Abyssal swam into the depths and disappeared into the darkness, a phantom among shadows. 

**Author's Note:**

> "Níl aon ghá a bheith eaglach. Ní bheidh mé ionsaí ort." = "There's no need to be afraid. I won't attack you."
> 
> "Cad is ainm duit?" = "What is your name?"
> 
> "Go dtí sin, mo Prionsa." = "Until then, my prince."
> 
> Title is original. Listened to "Crazy" by Melanie Martinez and "Lights" by Melanie Martinez (both are studio recordings of performances from The Voice). They're haunting as hell and you should DEFINITELY listen to them as you read this!


End file.
